To paraphrase John Donne, a forefather of Kannada navya poetry by proxy, no person is an island and the demise of any member of society diminishes us all. Gauramma’s untimely death is a loss to us all, left, right, center, and directionless.
That being said, a few murmurs about the patently ersatz “I am Gauri” proclamation, the glorification of the presumably well-healed editor of a tabloid generally devoid of civility, predictably intoxicated by the scent of scandal, fondly equating a non-nuanced grasp of liberationism with pouring vitriolic scorn on followers of one religion or caste, without taking into account the glaring fact that religions other than Hinduism in India have no better track record of promoting personal liberties maybe pertinent.

First, the byline for this outpouring of grief and call to a show of solidarity is Churumuri. I do not want to think that Churumuri is synonymous with KP, one of our best informed and incisive journalists. His style, wit, and sophisticated expression are a model to all our English language journalists. If KP is indeed the architect of the stuff I have just read above, I would have to say that his discernment has temporarily absconded. Gauri Lankesh, contrary to Churumuri’s assertion was no friend of us all, especially the section of women denied all rights by religion. It required large amounts patience to read her diatribic and uncouth prose, unmoderated by wisdom or a basic understanding of how an anarchic democracy founded on mimicked institutions works. It wasn’t important to her for she was a child of privilege. She had access to people in power. It is but one of the thousands of anamolies of Indian politics that even those not in charge of governance can direct a government’s course of action. In the current paranoid delusion of India anyone who even shows an interest in understanding Naxalism promptly starts living in the shadow of police surveillance.Not so Gauri Lankesh. She openly hobnobbed with self-declared Naxals, and, yet plied her tabloid trade undisturbed, and she never had to explain her actions to anybody. (For comparison: Keep in mind the asthmatic death of poor Snehalatha Reddy whose only crime was being a socialist in practice. Also recall that none of our leading intellectuals who are at least partly responsible for Siddaramayya’s ascension to power are known to have openly expressed their distress about our loss of civil liberties under Shrimathi Gandhi’s autocratic rule.)
Second, the claim that this is a political murder, a warning to those who exercise their freedom of speech and those who seek to be the voice of the oppressed. All this while no motive has been established for the killing and no suspects have bee identified? Time out of mind, we are reminded of the obvious: The Right abhors progressivism. But that does not in any way provide a syllogistic framework to conclude the killer of Shrimathi Gauri was a hired gun of the Right or a rabid archaic ideologist. Should we at least not have enough time to mourn and see how the investigation of the killing moves forward?

Now the last murmur, Isn’t extremism, whether Right or Left, bereft of reason?

As rightly indicated Gauri was a privileged press woman. She used her contact cleverly to be in touch with power that be. Editor of a small tabloid whose

circulation never
cro
ssed a thousand and convicted by a lower court pushed to a great height by vested interests.Her naxal connections are to be investigated thoroughly to get her involvement of cases which might be of grave concern.